Darkness at Dawn

PURIPANDA APPALASWAMY

Dropped from my stresses, jasmines all have faded;
My Lord has left my lap, my lap, O me;
Rousing memories of tortuous hell pain,
The morning breeze, scorpion-like, stings me.
My gray hair shakes the world with laughter
And tears mine, mock at me, at me, myself,
The mountain demons of early dawn, run
After me in hot pursuit, torch in hand,
To burn the borders of my sable sari.
Cobra-waves of the Eastern Main in fury foam
At mouths and dance in cruel, crooked swirl.
The sides of sable clouds shine like cut-throat swords;
And speed like pikes of length and strength
Bushes or caves or nether world
Where’s my asylum? Where’s my safety?
Would that the bonfire on the Eastern Hill.
The saffron flame-mark on the forehead
Of the threatening giantess of the sky
Perish in the gory western main,
Would that the demon had burnt to cinders
In my hot exhaled breath, black and deep!
Where’s my asylum? Where’s my safety?

–Translated from Telugu by Dr. G. Srirama Murty